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Israel sets up fake Eurovision boycott page to counter BDS campaign

Data gathering?

RT | May 10, 2019

Sporting the URL boycotteurovision.net Israel’s PR website masquerades as part of a campaign to boycott the Eurovision song contest in Tel Aviv, but actually features pro-Israel narrative.

For most people who follow the issue, the acronym ‘BDS’ refers to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to financially pressure Israel into improving treatment of Palestinians. However, according to a new website promoted via ads on Google, it now stands for how Israel is “beautiful, diverse, sensational.”

Despite the deceptive URL and the fact that the page doesn’t identify itself as run by the Israeli government, Tel Aviv’s PR ministry confirmed to Reuters that they were behind the campaign.

Meanwhile, with less than a week to go before the Eurovision takes place in Tel Aviv, the actual Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has been ramping up its efforts to encourage people to snub the competition. They were none too pleased with the Israeli government’s latest counter-measure.

“After its theft of Palestinian land and culture, Israel is now trying to appropriate a symbol of our nonviolent resistance,” said Alia Malak, of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

This desperate and crude propaganda is straight out of apartheid South Africa’s playbook.

Although the competition is intended to bring countries around the world together, the contest has been politicized a number of times.

Last year’s winner, Israel’s Netta Barzilai, yelled out “Next time in Jerusalem!” after receiving the trophy for her spirited chicken-themed song ‘Toy’. The statement was seen as controversial given that not even the US had yet recognized Jerusalem as the country’s capital.

Although Israel has pulled out all the stops to assure the event will go smoothly, it comes shortly after cross-border shelling between Israel and Palestine in Gaza earlier this week. Four Israelis were killed and at least 10 injured as a result of rockets fired from Gaza, while the IDF carried out some 320 air-raids which killed 25 people and injured dozens.

May 10, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Resistance Can Intensify Deterrence in Face of Zionist Enemy: Hezbollah

Deputy Chief of Hezbollah Executive Council Sheikh Ali Daamoush
Al-Manar | May 10, 2019

Deputy Chief of Hezbollah Executive Council Sheikh Ali Daamoush stressed that the silence of some Arab regimes about the Israeli aggression on Gaza was worse than the aggression itself, adding that they showed to be on the enemy’s side, just as the US and the West.

In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Daamoush pointed out that the Zionist enemy failed to achieve the aggression’s aims, adding that the Palestinian resistance proved it had improved its military capabilities.

The Palestinian resistance has a chance to intensify its deterrence capability in face of the Zionist enemy, his eminence stressed.

In a different context, Sheikh Daamoush noted that the US sanctions on Iran expose Washington’s aggressiveness against the regional states, adding that the Islamic Republic of Iran may never bow to such pressures.

May 10, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanon won’t survive with Palestinian, Syrian refugees: Auon

MEMO | May 10, 2019

Lebanon will never survive if half a million Palestinian refugees and 1.6 million Syrian refugees remain in the country, the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, said yesterday.

Aoun’s remarks came during a meeting held at the presidential palace in the Lebanese capital of Beirut with a delegation from the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), headed by its secretary general Souraya Bechealany.

Aoun called on the MECC to help the Lebanese government resolve the Syrian refugees’ issue “by persuading Western countries to accept the refugees return to their countries as soon as possible.”

“Israel has declared that the Palestinian refugees would remain where they are,” he pointed out, warning that if the refugees remained in Lebanon, “its demographics would change completely.”

There are 174,422 Palestinian refugees currently living in 12 camps and 156 Palestinian communities across Lebanon’s five governorates, according to a report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in 2017.

Lebanon – with an estimated population of 4.5 million – complains of the refugees’ burden it has been facing since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon reached 997,000 by the end of November 2017, excluding the Syrians who are not registered with UNHCR.

May 10, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Bennett: Jewish ‘assimilation’ is a ‘disaster’ for Israel

Israeli Education Minister, Naftali Bennett [HNM News/Facebook]

Outgoing Minister of Education and Diaspora Affairs, Naftali Bennett [HNM News/Facebook]
MEMO – May 9, 2019

In what appears to be an admission of the growing divide between Israel and Jews living outside the country, the outgoing Minister of Education and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett warned against what he sees as “assimilation” of Jews with communities around the world, describing it as “one of the greatest disasters in the history of the Jewish people”.

The remarks, which were reported by Arutz Sheva, were made at the annual International Bible Quiz in Jerusalem, which takes place each year on Israel’s Independence Day. It’s reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in audience.

Expressing grave concern over Jewish “assimilation”, Bennett who heads the New Right party with Ayelet Shaked, is reported saying: “The State of Israel has experienced the most prosperous and successful era it has known, but during these very days, one of the greatest disasters in the history of the Jewish people is taking place – we are losing millions of our Jewish brothers and sisters in the diaspora. Like an iceberg melting away, so many of our people are slipping away before our eyes.”

He called on the state of Israel to act “without delay, with all [our] strength, creativity, and determination, in order to save [our] brothers and sisters, members of the Jewish people around the world, from assimilation and anti-Semitism.”

Bennet insisted that the task of stemming the tide of Jewish “assimilation” needed to be “the project of the state of Israel”, explaining that “whenever we needed financial or political assistance, the Jews of the world mobilised to help”.

Bennet concluding his addressing saying: “We have a duty to ensure that we will be a sovereign and united Jewish state for all eternity.”

May 9, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

13 Israeli Violations against Journalists in April

By Tareq Astal | IMEMC News & Agencies | May 9, 2019

In its monthly report on Israeli violations against journalists, published today, WAFA said that 11 journalists were injured from rubber-coated metal bullets, live bullets and tear gas canisters, fired by Israeli soldiers, as well as from severe beatings. At the same time, one journalist was detained and another had his press papers seized.

On April 3, the Jerusalem District Court rejected an appeal filed by Mustafa Kharouf, a photographer with Turkish Anadolu news agency, to release him from prison so that he can be with his family in Jerusalem, and kept him incarcerated until May 5, the date he is to be expelled to Jordan. (Kharouf’s attorney got an injunction from the Israeli High Court on May 5, stopping his expulsion until it hears his plea.)

On April 5, Israeli forces shot Amad News Agency correspondent Safinaz al-Louh, with a teargas grenade, in her right foot, and Noor News photographer Mohammad Issa with a gas bomb, in his leg, while covering the March of Return protests, east of the Gaza Strip.

On April 10, Israeli forces raided the home of Ra’ed al-Sharif, in Hebron, holding his family in one room before embarking on a thorough search of the house and tampering with its contents.

On April 12, Israeli forces shot Filistin al-Hadath photographer and correspondent Ahmed al-Zurei, with a rubber-coated bullet, in the abdomen, while he was covering protests east of al-Bureij, in the central Gaza Strip.

On April 19, freelance photographer Abdel Rahim al-Khatib was hit with a rubber-coated bullet, in the left thigh, and Reuters photographer Bassam Massoud with a gas grenade, behind his left ear. A similar bomb injured Watan Radio reporter Mohammad al-Louh and freelance photographers Mahmoud Badr, in the left foot, and Ahmad Washah, in the head, while covering protests east of the Gaza Strip.

In the same day, Xinhua photographer Nidal Shtayeh and WAFA photographer Ayman Noubani were shot with rubber-coated metal bullets, in their thighs, while covering the Israeli army’s crackdown on the weekly protests in Kufr Qaddoum village, east of Qalqilia, in the north of the West Bank.

On April 26, Israeli forces targeted Shihab News Agency photographer Ramadan al-Sharif, with a live bullet that hit him in his right foot, while he covered protests east of Rafah, in southern Gaza.

The daily attacks on journalists in the West Bank are part of an ongoing Israeli policy against their activities and their role in covering the practices and violations committed by these forces, against Palestinian civilians and property.

May 9, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Armed grown soldiers arrest children, aggressively frisk them

International Solidarity Movement | May 8, 2019

A personal account of detention, racism and broken rules

An international activist who was documenting this incident was also detained by the soldiers, she describes her detention as follows:

I’ve been at Salaymeh checkpoint every other day for a month and a half just trying to document the soldier’s harassment of the children, keeping in contact with the UN, so they can hopefully help if children are arrested. I am always mindful not to antagonize the soldiers and try to interact with them as little as possible. My hope is that an international presence will result in less violence because the soldiers will know they are being watched and may be held accountable.

On the day that I was detained I was filming a soldier as normal, who threatened to arrest another activist who I was with. Because I’d witnessed a lot of broken rules and violence by the army during my time at Salaymeh checkpoint, I knew it was important to keep filming. The commander asked me to move away, and when I kept filming, she told me that she would have another soldier move me with force. When I didn’t stop filming, she told me to come with her and that she had the authority to make arrests. I was very unsure of what to do in this situation – I had been told before that soldiers could not make arrests, but I was confused, and I was afraid of what might happen so I complied and went with her. I later found out that what the commander had said was in fact a lie and that she had absolutely no legal authority to detain me.

I was kept at Salaymeh checkpoint for an hour and a half, being told that the police would come but they never did. I was then put into a military van without being told where I was being taken. They then drove me around the city back and forth for half an hour which was very confusing. I still don’t know why they did this but I believe now that they were trying to shake off the UN who were trying to find out where I was being held in order to assist me. Eventually I was taken to a military base where they were also holding the Palestinian child who had been arrested. We were both held there for over 5 hours. During this time I was marshalled around, sporadically questioned, never given any food or water and never having anything explained to me. I was told that I would never be able to return to the country and that I would be deported that day. The whole time I was denied access to my lawyer and I was never given any reason for why I was being held.

What struck me the most about being detained with the Palestinian child was that as an international I was treated far better. I, an adult, was not handcuffed, and I was allowed to keep my things. He however, a child, was handcuffed, restrained, frisked, and they took his phone and his things. It was shocking and angering to me that this child was treated so much worse than me – it made it very obvious to me that the treatment of Palestinians undoubtedly has its roots in racism. – Full article

Children in Al-Ram living in close proximity to the separation barrier

Defence for Children Palestine – May 9, 2019

The Israeli separation barrier cuts Al-Ram off from East Jerusalem, restricting movement for these two Palestinian siblings who live near the barrier. Sadeen Q., 12, says the Israeli army fires tear gas from behind the barrier into their home. Shawqi Q., 10, dreams of a day when the barrier will be gone. In 2004, the International Court of Justice advised Israel to dismantle portions of the barrier. Israel has yet to comply.

Zaid’s school experience in Nablus is framed by soldiers

Defence for Children Palestine – May 9, 2019

“Soldiers and settlers stormed the school and suddenly broke into the classroom and started to assault the students before arresting me,” said Zaid M., 15., about an Israeli raid during an exam. He says that interrogators threatened to assault him unless he told them which of his peers were involved in stone-throwing. The school’s principal says that weekly army raids and other disruptions negatively impact the school and its students. DCIP has found that children living or studying near Israeli settlements are at higher risk of arrest.

Waiting for reconstruction, Oday lives in a damaged house

Defence for Children Palestine – August 16, 2017

Israel’s 50-day assault on the Gaza Strip in 2014 left thousands homeless. The assault completely destroyed or severely damaged 17,800 Palestinian homes and partially destroyed another 153,200 homes. In the wake of the destruction, the blockade has slowed reconstruction progress. Oday M., 16, from Khuza’a in the southern part of Gaza, has moved back into his partially destroyed house while waiting for construction to finish on a new home.

May 9, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s “Deal of the Century” Will Use Sanctions, Military Threats to Force Palestinian Acceptance

By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | May 8, 2019

The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, owned by top Trump donor Sheldon Adelson, has published in Hebrew a leaked draft of the Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century” for the Israel-Palestine conflict. The draft was given to the newspaper by an official from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which is currently headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan, which has been drafted by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, is expected to be released this June after the conclusion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to Mondoweiss.

The draft plan published by Israel Hayom, while in keeping with many of the details that have been leaked to the press in past weeks and months, contains several new and troubling claims, including the Trump administration’s plan to force Palestinian leadership to accept the plan through threats of economic strangulation and military force.

For instance, if Palestinian leadership — such as the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Hamas — rejects the Trump administration’s “peace plan,” the United States will respond aggressively by ensuring that “no country in the world transfer money” to Palestine, which would apparently be accomplished through U.S. sanctions. With Palestine’s economy and the livelihood of many Palestinians dependent on foreign aid, such an act would amount to economic strangulation of the over 6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and around 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. 

Furthermore, if the PA accepts the plan but Gaza’s leadership — i.e., Hamas — rejects it, “the U.S. will back Israel to personally harm leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad” and the U.S. will hold Hamas fully responsible for any future “round of violence between Israel and Hamas,” regardless of the circumstances that initiate that violence. In other words, the Trump administration is willing to join a future war against the embattled Gaza Strip, described by the United Nations as an open-air prison that is already largely unlivable for its inhabitants and under a full blockade, if Hamas rejects the Trump administration’s plan for the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Thus, the draft plan states that the Trump administration’s tactic of negotiating with the Palestinians involves a combination of threats of economic destruction and military destruction aimed at bullying an already dispossessed people into accepting a plan that clearly favors their occupiers.

Creating a “new” Palestine

In addition to the Trump administration’s apparent game plan to force Palestinian compliance with the so-called “Deal of the Century,” the plan also calls for the creation of a demilitarized state of “New Palestine” that would be incredibly small, as the document calls for the Israeli annexation of the entirety of the Jordan Valley (around 30 percent of the West Bank) and the annexation of all illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which now cover well over half of what international law maintains is Palestinian territory.

This “new” state would be showered in aid from several countries, including the Gulf monarchies, European nations and the United States, allegedly amounting to $30 billion over the next five years. Most of the funding, according to the plan, will come from oil-producing Gulf states like Saudi Arabia. It is unclear whether “New Palestine” would be considered a sovereign state and whether it would be allowed to apply for full membership in the United Nations.

While the plan would allow “New Palestine” access to Jerusalem as a shared, undivided capital with Israel, Palestinians would be responsible for paying the state of Israel for their security because it would be forbidden from having its own army. In other words, Palestinians would be forced to pay the Israel Defense Force (IDF), the military force that has occupied the West Bank for over 50 years, to “protect” them despite the fact the Palestinians are regularly extrajudicially murdered by IDF soldiers. However, the apparent “concession” offered by the Trump administration in this regard would be allowing the “New Palestine” to maintain a police force with “light weaponry.”

In addition, the plan apparently concedes to some past Palestinian demands, such as the release of Palestinian prisoners over a three-year period. However, the draft of the plan published by Israel Hayom does not address Palestinian refugees or the right of return of those refugees in any capacity.

Outsourcing the destruction of Palestine

The fact that this draft of the plan was released to the Netanyahu- and Trump-aligned Israel Hayom by Israel’s Foreign Ministry — itself run by Netanyahu — strongly suggests that Israel’s government was ready to make the details of the plan known to the Israeli public. The draft, which was dismissed by at least one unnamed White House official as “speculative,” reveals an Israeli-centric plan that will likely be rejected by both Israeli right-wing hardliners and a majority of Palestinians.

However, Israel’s leadership is likely to accept the plan only because they know that the Palestinians will reject it, allowing them to blame the failure of the Trump administration-brokered “peace process” on the Palestinians.

Indeed, Dr. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, affirmed on Tuesday that the PA considered the “peace plan” as merely a pretext to a long-planned West Bank land grab by Israel and planned to reject the so-called “Deal of the Century. “If what we read is what is to be expected from this plan, then it seems that the objective of it is not a solution to the conflict, but to give pretext to the Israeli government to annex other portions [of the West Bank],” Mansour recently stated at UN headquarters.

Mansour added:

Some in the [Trump] administration, they think, ‘Yes, what will help peace is break the legs of the Palestinians, break one arm and five teeth, and when they are on the ground they will come crawling to you for anything you offer them.’ Those who think that way don’t know the Palestinians.”

The Palestinian plan to reject the Trump administration’s deal is no secret, with the outgoing French ambassador recently describing the plan as “dead on arrival.” This fact of assured rejection makes all the details of the plan irrelevant, save for the part of the plan that deals with “penalties” for the Palestinians if they reject the plan.

Those penalties should draw the most concern as the “peace plan” is made public, as it harkens coming U.S. military involvement in a future war between Israel and Gaza –regardless of whether that war is initiated by Gazans or Israelis — as well as extreme economic hardship on the West Bank through U.S. sanctions.

Netanyahu has made no secret of the fact that he does not want the two-state solution provided in this U.S. plan, even if the Palestinian “state” is demilitarized and minuscule. However, if the Palestinians reject the plan — as he knows they will — the United States will do the work of further destroying Palestine for him by committing to a future U.S. invasion of Gaza and to the economic strangulation of the West Bank. These “penalties” will allow Israel’s government to blame Palestinians for their own foreign-imposed hardship while giving Netanyahu’s government leeway to fulfill its long-standing goal of “conquering” the Gaza Strip and completely annexing the entirety of the West Bank.

As Mansour noted, the “peace plan” is indeed a pretext, but for far more than a land grab. Instead, it is a pretext for outsourcing the destruction of Palestine to the United States under the cover of a “peace process” that no diplomats — in Israel, Palestine or elsewhere — have at any point taken seriously since the early days of the Trump administration.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

May 8, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas condemns Israel’s bombing of media offices in Gaza

Palestine Information Center – May 5, 2019

The Hamas leader Raafat Murra on Sunday decried the Israeli occupation army’s targeting of several media offices in the ongoing aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Murra condemned the Israeli attack on the Anadolu Agency office and described it as “terrorism” and “deliberate crime”.

He affirmed that Hamas fully supports all Palestinian, Arab, and international media platforms which cover the events in Gaza objectively and professionally.

Israeli warplanes on Saturday bombed the Anadolu Agency office and the Palestinian prisoners media office with several missiles during large-scale aerial attacks on Gaza.

May 8, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Reflection: Key to open door of peace is in the hands of Israel

By Latin Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah – Al-Bushra – 6.5.2019

There is a war on Gaza, as it has been once, twice, and more. Gaza and its people are in a state of permanent war. It has been under constant siege for 13 years, which is war imposed upon them every day. Today, the month of Ramadan has started for fasting, prayer, repentance and good deeds. Instead, we see death exploding in and around Gaza. Israel itself complains of the war. Yesterday, Sunday May 5th, the Israeli Defense Minister tweeted and  cried out to the world to notice and see Israelis waking up for the second day in a row of  rockets coming from Gaza and falling in Israel.

War is painful after two days in Israel. It is as painful and more painful in Gaza after 13 years of siege. War is an absolute evil both for the Israelis and for the Palestinians. Mr. Minister, the key to peace and the end of war is not in the hands of a world that we summon but simply in your hand and in the hands of Israel.

The issue is not only that of Gaza but the issue of all the Palestinian people. The issue is the injustice imposed on the Palestinian people for generations. Israel refuses to see Palestinians as human beings with same rights and equal to all human beings. Israel has tried the methods of war and violence repeatedly to solve the issue. Until today, it has not succeeded and now, on the near horizon, there is talk about a solution wrapped in darkness and non-recognition of Palestinian rights. It will not bring a just solution. It will be another failure.

The solution is simple if Israel wanted to SEE. If it wanted to see that the Palestinian people have the same rights as the Israeli people, all being equal in humanity. It is in Israel’s hands – Israel is the stronger – to realize this equality. Avoiding this equality until now has been useless. Israel itself today suffers from war launched on Gaza.

The solution is simple. Israeli human beings should not remain exposed to war, as is the Palestinian human being. Both are human and equal in humanity. We call upon Israel, the friends of Israel, those interested in the survival of Israel and the security of Israel to simply see that the Palestinian and Israeli peoples are equal in rights and duties and capable of making peace.

We say to the Israeli authorities: It is in your hands to keep us and keep yourselves in constant war and hostility, and in your hands to let us move together to an equal life with dignity, peace and security. Learn from the experience of already 70 years in war. They did not yield security and peace. The cause of the Palestinian people cannot be solved by violence or unjustly imposed solutions, but only by justice and equality. This is the key to war and peace in Israel and Palestine. The key to open the door of peace is in the hands of Israel.

Eileen Fleming, Senior Non-Arab Correspondent for USA’s The Arab Daily News, Author, Reporter:  In Nov. 2006, Father Manuel, the parish priest at the Latin Church and school in Gaza, informed the world:

“Gaza cannot sleep! The people are suffering unbelievably. They are hungry, thirsty, have no electricity or clean water. They are suffering constant bombardments and sonic booms from low flying aircraft. They need food: bread and water. Children and babies are hungry… people have no money to buy food. The price of food has doubled and tripled due to the situation. We cannot drink water from the ground here as it is salty and not hygienic. People must buy water to drink. They have no income, no opportunities to get food and water from outside and no opportunities to secure money inside of Gaza. They have no hope.

“Without electricity children are afraid. No light at night. No oil or candles… Thirsty children are crying, afraid and desperate…Many children have been violently thrown from their beds at night from the sonic booms. Many arms and legs have been broken. These planes fly low over Gaza and then reach the speed of sound. This shakes the ground and creates shock waves like an earthquake that causes people to be thrown from their bed. I, myself weigh 120 kilos and was almost thrown from my bed due to the shock wave produced by a low flying jet that made a sonic boom.

“Gaza cannot sleep… the cries of hungry children, the sullen faces of broken men and women who are just sitting in their hungry emptiness with no light, no hope, no love. These actions are War Crimes!

May 7, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel-Gaza deaths: 293 Gazans & 6 Israelis killed in past year

With the recent surge in violence between Israel and Gaza, it is important to examine events of the past year and to learn the chronology and details of the recent deaths among both populations…

By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | May 6, 2019

With news reports focusing on recent deaths in Israel and Gaza, it’s valuable to enlarge the time period being examined.

Israeli soldiers have been shooting Gazan men, women, and children every week for over the past year.

Israeli forces have killed approximately 290 Gazans and have injured over 29,000 since Gazans began their weekly Great March of Return on March 30th (see below about why they are marching.)  A few additional Gazans died during this time period from wounds inflicted by Israeli forces earlier.

Among those killed and maimed have been numerous medics, women, children, and journalists. Approximately 126 Gazans have had legs and/or arms amputated, and others have been permanently paralyzed.

While Israeli governmental statements, often parroted by U.S. media, claim that Israel targets “terror,” the large majority of Gazans killed by Israeli forces have been civilians.

During the same time period, Gazan resistance fighters have killed 6 Israelis, one of them a Palestinian. (It is difficult to provide a number for Israelis wounded during this time since Israeli statistics for injured include those suffering from panic attacks.)

The names and details of both the Palestinians and the Israelis killed are listed on this timeline.

Deaths during the last 3 days:

On Friday, May 3, Israeli forces killed 4 Palestinians and injured 82. Among the injured were 34 children, two journalists and three paramedics.

On Saturday, May 4, Israeli forces killed 4 Palestinians (including an infant and her mother). Israeli forces also targeted and destroyed a news agency. Journalistic organizations around the world have condemned this attack. This attack was largely unreported by U.S. news media.

On Sunday, May 5, Palestinian resistance fighters killed 3 Israelis and 1 Palestinian Israeli, and Israeli military forces killed 19 Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy and a 4-month-old girl named Maria. The Israeli shelling destroyed or damaged 600 Palestinian homes, businesses and livelihoods.

The Palestinian Israeli who died, Ziad Alhamamd, was a bedouin from the unrecognized Negev village of as-Sawaween who was working in an Israeli factory in Ashakalon when it was hit by a rocket from Gaza. Gaza’s rockets are mostly home-made and lack guidance systems.

Unrecognized villages are Palestinian villages that were in Palestine before Israel was created that are not formally recognized by the state of Israel. They have no access to Israeli services such as water, electricity, telephones, sewage systems, roads, and often schools and voting stations. Many of the villages are under Israeli demolition orders and never know when their homes will be destroyed.  Alhamamd’s village of Sawaween had been denied a school for its 350 elementary school-aged children.

US media provide Israel-centric reports

U.S. news media have published a number of reports on the recent violence that emphasize the Israeli deaths, begin with Israeli victims, largely ignore the year-long killing of Gazans, and frame Israeli actions as defensive.

The New York Times lead paragraph that framed its report yesterday is an example:

“Fighting between Israel and Gaza escalated rapidly on Sunday in the worst combat since the last full-blown war in 2014, with Palestinian rocket and missile attacks killing four Israeli civilians and Israeli forces taking aim at individual Gaza militants.”

Fox News report on Sunday:

“The death toll continues to rise Sunday on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border in one of the most intense flare-ups of violence in the region in years, shattering a month-long lull in attacks.

“Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 600 rockets into southern Israel in less than 24 hours, killing at least four Israelis and leaving several more in critical condition.”

Below is how the Washington Post introduced its report today:

“An uneasy cease-fire settled over the cities of southern Israel on Monday after a weekend that brought a rain of 600 rockets from the Gaza Strip, but not all residents thought the truce was a good thing.

“Near the explosion-scarred house of Moshe Agadi, 58, who became the first Israeli since 2014 to die in rocket fire from Gaza, mothers took their children to play in a park after 48 hours of sheltering indoors.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has abducted 11 Palestinians in the West Bank, uprooted 120 Palestinian olive trees,  and an Israeli NGO published a report revealing that Israeli authorities forced almost 3,000 Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem between 2004 and 2019, deliberately leaving them homeless, including 1,574 of minors.

Total number of Israeli and Palestinian deaths including those outside Gaza

Altogether,  343 Palestinians have died from Israeli attacks, and 16 Israelis have died from Palestinian attacks since March 30, 2018 .

At least 9,908 Palestinians and 1,267 Israelis have been killed by someone from the other side since 2000.

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

RELATED:

TAKE ACTION: Contact Congress to condemn Israeli assault on Gazans

Once again, ‘NYT’ distorts the news, dishonestly making Gazans the aggressor and Israel the victim

May 6, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces murder Palestinian after refusing political detention

Palestinian prisoner Amjad Jamal Galag, 30, shot and killed by Israeli forces on 6May, 2019 [Twitter]

Palestinian prisoner Amjad Jamal Galag, 30, shot and killed by Israeli forces on 6May, 2019 [Twitter]
MEMO | May 6, 2019

Israeli occupation forces shot and killed freed Palestinian prisoner Amjad Jamal Galag, 30, from the neighbourhood of Atteel in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, reports Palestine Post 24

Sources said that a group of Israeli occupation policemen attempted to arrest him at an illegal Israeli military checkpoint.

He refused to surrender to the Israeli occupation forces and resumed his way towards occupied Palestine.

The Israeli police chased him and when they could not catch him, they opened fire at his car and killed him.

It is worth noting that the Israeli occupation forces raided tonight several areas across the occupied West Bank and arrested 14 Palestinians from their beds.

Rights groups have recorded several cases when Israeli occupation forces or police executed Palestinians after refusing to be taken to prison.

May 6, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Palestinian Authority is No Longer Crying Wolf Over its Imminent Collapse

By Jonathan Cook – The National – May 5, 2019

We have been here many times before. However, on this occasion even the principal actors understand that the Palestinian Authority is not crying wolf as it warns of imminent collapse.

The crisis is entirely of Israel and Washington’s making. Keen to pander to hawkish public opinion in the run-up to last month’s election, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a severe blow against Mahmoud Abbas and his government-in-permanent-waiting.

He announced that Israel would withhold a portion of the taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, and which it is obligated under the Oslo accords to pass on to the PA, based in the West Bank.

The money deducted is the sum the PA transfers as stipends to the families of political prisoners and those killed and maimed by the Israeli army.

This is an incendiary issue, as Netanyahu well knows, given that Palestinians view these families as having made the ultimate sacrifice in the struggle to liberate their people from brutal Israeli occupation.

Abbas cannot be seen to back down, and so has refused to accept any of the monthly tax transfers until the full sum is reinstated, amounting to nearly two-thirds of the PA’s revenues.

Given how precarious Palestinian finances are, after decades of resource theft and restrictions on development imposed by Israel, the PA is already on the brink of bankruptcy.

The problem for Netanyahu and Washington is that the PA was established – under the 25-year-old Oslo accords – to take the pressure and costs off Israel of policing the Palestinian population under occupation.

If the PA collapses, so do the Palestinian security forces that have been keeping order in the West Bank as Israel has continued to plunder Palestinian land and resources.

Late last month the United Nations warned that the standoff had left the PA facing “unprecedented financial, security and political challenges”.

Which means that, despite his recent electoral triumph, Netanyahu is in a serious bind.

He cannot be seen by his even more right-wing coalition partners to be climbing down and restoring stipends to people Israelis view simply as “terrorists”.

Equally, he dares not risk a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank. That would be a real possibility if the Palestinian economy implodes and there are no Palestinian security forces to suppress the resulting wave of popular anger.

A preview of the difficulties in store was given at the weekend, when more than 600 rockets were fired out of Gaza, threatening the cancellation of the Eurovision song contest in Israel later this month.

By Sunday evening, four Israelis were reported dead, while 20 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli airstrikes. The Palestinian fatalities included two pregnant women and a toddler.

There is also the danger, from Israel’s point of view, that if Abbas’s PA collapses, the void in the West Bank will be filled by his Hamas rivals, who run Gaza. Israel has been delighted to keep the Palestinian territories divided under feuding Fatah and Hamas leaderships.

A way out – or a change of tack – is urgently required.

Israel has tried twice to quietly make partial tax transfers to the PA’s bank account, in the hope the money would be accepted. The PA returned it.

Then, the European Union stepped in. Ostensibly an “honest broker”, it appears to be occupying a role the Trump administration has formally abandoned. The EU proposed last week that the PA accept the transfers on a “provisional basis”, until the crisis can be resolved.

PA officials were dismissive. “Let the people take to the streets,” one said. “We have our backs to the wall.” The PA line is that in the current climate, if it backtracks, Israel will simply intensify unilateral measures harming the Palestinian cause.

So now, more in desperation than any realistic prospect of achieving peace, attention is turning to Donald Trump’s long-promised “deal of the century”.

After endless delays, the US administration now seems to be preparing for its release next month, soon after the holy month of Ramadan finishes.

The plan’s main architects, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, have issued a spate of statements hinting at the contents.

Greenblatt has sought to reassure neighbouring Egypt and Jordan that they will not shoulder the burden. He discounted rumours either that Gaza’s Palestinians would be encouraged to move to the Sinai, in a land swap that would allow Israel to annex parts of the West Bank, or that Jordan would find itself recast as an alternative Palestinian homeland.

Kushner, meanwhile, has strongly suggested that the goal of a two-state solution, implied by the Oslo process, will finally be jettisoned. “New and different ways to reach peace must be tried,” he has said.

He has also stated that the plan will stress “economic benefits” for the Palestinians and “security” for Israel.

David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel and a stalwart ally of Israel’s most extreme settlers, has recently added that Israel will maintain security control of the West Bank.

According to analysts, these statements suggest the White House is preparing the ground for an offer to the Palestinians of “limited autonomy” – an outcome Arab officials confirmed to The Washington Post.

Sensing the danger, 40 former senior European officials have signed a letter opposing any plan that creates a Palestinian “entity devoid of sovereignty, territorial contiguity and economic viability”.

“Limited autonomy” would be a reformulation of Israel’s long-running ambition to thwart permanently Palestinian hopes of statehood – a policy the late Israeli academic Baruch Kimmerling once termed “politicide”.

Since the late 1970s, the Israeli right has advocated hemming Palestinians into enclaves where they are denied sovereignty.

The model of disparate cantons, effectively operating as glorified municipalities and surrounded by a sea of Israeli settlers, is little different from that of “black homelands”, or Bantustans, established in apartheid-era South Africa.

Now, it seems, the Trump administration is ready to support this racist idea as a way to promote regional peace.

The Americans hope that, with a few sweeteners, the Palestinians can be made to swallow this bitter pill. It is an idea Netanyahu has advanced for some time, with his talk of “economic peace” – or what might be better termed “economic pacification”.

But the current impasse on taxes shows that buying off the Palestinians with bribes, in return for the abandonment of core national goals, may not prove so easy.

With the PA close to collapse, it is hard to see how Trump’s deal of the century can do anything other than speed up the authority’s demise.

May 6, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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